UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Texas authorities say the gunman who massacred 21 people at an elementary school was in the building for over an hour before he was killed by law enforcement officers.
The amount of time that elapsed has stirred anger and questions among family members, who demanded to know why they did not storm the place and put a stop to the rampage more quickly.
Texas Department of Public Safety spokesperson Travis Considine said 18-year-old Salvador Ramos entered Robb Elementary School and began his rampage at 11:40 a.m. Tuesday.
A Border Patrol tactical unit began trying to get inside an hour later, and at 12:58 p.m., radio chatter noted he was dead.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
UVALDE, Texas (AP) — The 18-year-old gunman who killed 21 people at a Texas elementary school walked in unimpeded through an apparently unlocked door, a law enforcement official said Thursday.
Also, the gunman, Salvador Ramos, was apparently inside the building for at least three-quarters of an hour before Border Patrol agents stormed a classroom and killed him, according to the timeline given by Victor Escalon, a regional director at the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The school normally has an armed school safety officer. But when Ramos arrived on Tuesday, “there was not an officer, readily available, armed,” and the gunman entered the building ”unobstructed,” Escalon said.
Law enforcement authorities faced mounting questions and anger over the amount of time that elapsed before they stormed the place and put a stop to the rampage at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
Many other details of the case and the police response remained murky. The motive for the massacre — the nation’s deadliest school shooting since Newtown, Connecticut, a decade ago — remained under investigation, with authorities saying Ramos had no known criminal or mental health history.
During the siege, which ended when a U.S. Border Patrol team burst in and shot the gunman to death, frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the school, according to witnesses.
“Go in there! Go in there!” women shouted at the officers soon after the attack began, said Juan Carranza, 24, who watched the scene from outside a house across the street.
Carranza said the officers should have entered the school sooner: “There were more of them. There was just one of him.”
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw said Wednesday that 40 minutes to an hour elapsed from when Ramos opened fire on the school security officer to when the tactical team shot him.
“The bottom line is law enforcement was there,” McCraw said. “They did engage immediately. They did contain (Ramos) in the classroom.”
But a department spokesman said Thursday that authorities were still working to clarify the timeline of the attack, uncertain whether that period of 40 minutes to an hour began when the gunman reached the school, or earlier, when he shot his grandmother at home.
“Right now we do not have an accurate or confident timeline to provide to say the gunman was in the school for this period,” Lt. Christopher Olivarez told CNN.
